Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 1376 to 1400 of 2962 results

1 Thessalonians 4:13--5:11

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... to sleep intellectually, morally, and spiritually-- we are all in danger of that. There is only one thing that will keep us awake as Christians -- that's a vision of our calling as disciples. Listen to verses nine and ten of our scripture lesson: "For God has not designed us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with Him. The Cross is there -- do you see it. "Who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might ...

1377. Don't Mess With Mr. In-between

James 1:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... people are usually wiser people. James is inviting us, however, to employ a quality of wisdom that far exceeds the earthly kind of wisdom." (The Communicator's Commentary, Vol. 11, p. 27) That wisdom has to do with guidance, with living life in the way God designed it. It has to do with knowing who we are as God's children and acting in that fashion. "Dr. Hendrik Kramer was a missionary in Indonesia for some 23 years. And nearly 50 years ago, when he returned home to Holland, the Nazis were overrunning ...

1378. Who Are Christians?

James 5:13-20

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... weary for reading or reflecting, so I walked. I began to look intentionally at the airline travel posters on the walls around each gate area. It's beautiful photography. I paid attention to posters from different cities and countries. Obviously, the art was what whomever designed them wanted you to know about the city or country. It was an invitation -- a come-on -- look at us. This is what we are. The poster for New York City had the mighty, but charming Lady of Liberty imposed over the Manhattan skyline ...

1379. The Art Of Borrowing And Lending A Donkey

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... 't matter who we are and what we have. If we respond to that call, we become agents of love and peace and goodness and reconciliation. We may go unnoticed and unheralded because we don't seek the limelight. In fact, we may be surprised and humbly disclaim any designation of being God's agents -- but God knows, and people along the way will know that we are being used by God for his purposes. So, the owner of that donkey, in learning the art of lending his donkey, teaches us the art of being willing to be ...

1380. How Is It With Your Soul?

Luke 6:37-42

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... many of us are seeking to live in our own power, without depending on the Spirit. In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard tells of an experience with a sphinx moth, something that looks like what we call a bumble bee...big body, tiny wings. Their design defies all aerodynamic principles. But they do fly. The way they fly is unique. They blow themselves up with oxygen. They breathe deeply in, taking in as much air as possible. Almost panting worse than a worn out hunting coon dog. They take in as much ...

1381. A Pattern For Giving And Living

2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... there in verse 2: "Their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity." On the surface that has nothing to do with us, for none of us know poverty. But it has everything to do with us because it describes more than their sacrificial giving, it designates their real wealth. Their wealth was in their love which expressed itself in generosity. As I travel the world, and as I seek to observe, and read and reflect, I see two ways in which the world is being destroyed: outward poverty and inward emptiness ...

1382. Our Father's Love Begotten

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... you have the Apocalypse of John, what is known as the Book of Revelation. It's all there in kind of a summary in the 13th chapter of Mark the signs in the heavens and the tribulations on earth. In the Lectionary of the Church designated readings for public worship readings for the first Sunday in Advent always include some reading about the second coming of Jesus. This is purposeful and very helpful. As Christians we do not romanticize the birth of the baby Jesus and leave the story there. The beginning ...

1383. Growing In Self-esteem

Psalm 81:1-16

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... persons in our life think of us. Well, who are the most important persons in our life at the time when our identity is being formed, our self image shaped? Our family: mothers, fathers, siblings and our closest friends. What I want to say now is not designed to make anyone's guilt more pronounced, but to give us a perspective on how we come to be as we are, but also to give us direction for relating to others -- especially to little ones. So, young parents, you listen listen especially well. What others ...

1384. Reflections On A Calling (ten-year Anniversary Sermon)

2 Corinthians 4:1-18

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... change. In fact, that part of the job has been relatively easy for me. I've had difficulty in churches, I've had difficulty here, but for the most part every congregation I have served had been very responsive to being led. (These three designations, powerlessness, pace, and pettiness -- in some of the content of this discussion is suggested by William A. Ridder, "Twenty-Five Something", June 17, 1990) Now I don't mean there have not been times when I felt the people were hopelessly prejudiced and closed ...

1385. Watering The Garden Of Our Life (communion Meditation)

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... Jesus giving of Himself to us. In II Corinthians 8, verse 9, "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich." Someone has designated three great killers in modern life: the telephone, the clock, and the calendar. They are the symbols of hurried, hectic living. The tyranny of the telephone is interruption, not only through a busy day, but often into the night. The tyranny of the clock has to ...

1386. Christmas and the New Family

John 1:1-18

Sermon

J. Ellsworth Kalas

... ; yet the world did not know him" (v. 10). He is the Grand Playwright who appears in the middle of his own production; and the amateur actors don't recognize him, don't sense that the words they speak are of his giving, the costumes they wear of his designing and making. John says, "He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him" (v. 11). There are few verses in the Bible more extraordinary and more wrought with tragedy than that one. He is rejected by those to whom he belongs, and who ...

1387. Headlines and Holiness

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Frank G. Honeycutt

... human being in the world. It's easy to spot people like him. We are far less comfortable, however, discussing our own role in the suffering and injustice of this world. And we may say to Jesus, "Look, I never slit anybody's throat. I never designed a shoddily constructed building that collapsed on anybody." And you would be right. But Jesus is saying today, at least in part, that the headlines that grab our attention and raise our moral revulsion are finally a smokescreen for the more subtle sin that is in ...

1388. The Glory of Christ

Isaiah 60:1-22

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

This serves as the stated text for Epiphany in all three cycles of the lectionary. The preacher may therefore want to look at the expositions in Cycles A and B also. The church has designated this text for the celebration of Epiphany Sunday, that Sunday when it announces the fact that the gospel is intended for all peoples throughout the world. Both accompanying stated texts emphasize that fact. In the story of the wise men, who symbolize the foreign nations, Matthew shows them coming to ...

1389. Evaluating Our Names

Isaiah 62:1-12

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... us? If that is true, then perhaps are we also "Desolate," as the prophet announces? Do we really have a place in God's ongoing purpose? Is there any lasting, eternal meaning to the programs we are carrying out? Is what we are doing in our congregation designed to further God's plan for all people, to bring in his kingdom on earth even as it is in heaven? Or are we a little group whose work will disappear in the sands of time and finally be insignificant? These are very hard questions for any congregation ...

1390. Old and New Commandments

Exodus 34:29-35

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... For example, we read at Christmas that when the angels appeared to the shepherds, "The glory of the Lord shone around them" (Luke 2:9). But what is meant by the glory of the Lord? God's glory has two meanings throughout the scriptures. First, his glory can designate the esteem and honor in which God is held. The basic meaning of the Hebrew verb, "to be glorious," is "to have weight." And we have the same usage in English. We say that someone has "great weight" in the community. So when we are called upon to ...

1391. Responding to the Story

Deuteronomy 26:1-15

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... a story, to the story of what God has done in human history. It is not as if Christians through the ages have looked at the natural world and decided that there must be a God who created it. They have not thought up a picture of God and designed worship to go with the picture. Nor have they adjusted to their changing cultural and social situations simply by drawing up their own rules for the ethics and morals by which we should live. There are some forms of faith in our day that are such products of human ...

1392. Passover and The Lord's Supper

Exodus 12:1-30

Sermon

Elizabeth Achtemeier

... . As it now stands, the institution of Passover is embedded in the story of the exodus, falling immediately before the account of the final plague on the Egyptians in the form of the death of the firstborn. And it is the Passover ritual that is designed to protect the enslaved Israelites from that plague. According to the dating in our passage, the Passover is to be celebrated on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, which is our March/April. It is a family festival, sometimes shared with a neighbor ...

1393. My Prayer For You: Barefoot Days of the Soul

Galatians 5:1-15

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... and its answer brings barefoot days of the soul. (II) The first petition is this in verse 16: “I pray that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through His Spirit.” Paul uses this expression “the inner man” – or “my inmost self” to designate who he really is. He talks about the civil war that rages within where the “I” who wants to do good ends up doing evil. Do you remember that passage in Romans 7? It is a dramatic statement of Paul’s inner anguished conflict with sin ...

1394. If You Get Too Close to the Cross, You Will End Up Carrying It

Mark 15:21-32

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... and hear their story. A Christian should not go to Jerusalem without deliberately walking the Via Dolorosa – the way that Jesus walked from the place of trial and sentencing to Golgotha where He died that we might live. The Stations of the Cross are designated along the Via Dolorosa, marking the happenings on that long trek up Golgotha’s hill. The most meaningful station for me was the one that marks the place where Jesus stumbled and fell. Roman soldiers looked out on the crowd of pilgrims packed into ...

1395. If I Have Not Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... commenting on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony – but I run the risk. How appropriate is the word for the day when as a part of our worship service we celebrate the sacrament of holy matrimony. Yes, I called it a sacrament. I know that the Church designates what sacraments are – and I know that in our Protestant Christian church there are two sacraments – baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Yet, would God in our minds and hearts that all of us see marriage sacramentally – God doing God’s work in our lives ...

1396. Generic Christianity Is Not Enough

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... , radical individual rights of secular ideology are left unchallenged by generic Christianity which shies away from calling people to responsibility and judgment. Well, you get the picture -- I hope. The question is, how do we move from that generic bland undistinctive designation of being Christian? How do we move from being generic Christians to being those who are seeking to take Paul seriously in his call to that first generations of Christians? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God ...

1397. Fulfill Your Ministry

2 Timothy 3:10--4:8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears have to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. What a designation: “itching ears.” So, tragically the Church is full of ear-tickling preachers – those who filter the content of the message so people will not be offended. We . . . slight the Holy Spirit, unwilling to affirm anything that might hint at supernatural intervention – or ...

1398. In the Wrong Place At the Right Time

Mark 15:21-32

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

1399. The Nature of the Church and Christian Discipleship

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... on discipleship – discipleship in an instant society. He used Nietzsche’s phrase as a title for the book: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. In that book he said: And going against the stream of the world’s ways, there are two biblical designations for people of faith that are extremely useful: disciple and pilgrim. Disciple says we are people, who spend our lives apprenticed to our Master, Jesus Christ. We are in a growing learning relationship, always. A disciple is a learner, but not in the ...

1400. A Church for the 21st Century: Holy, Charismatic, Apostolic - An Enclave of Resistance

Luke 4:14-30

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

In September of 1997 there was a groundbreaking service for a Catholic cathedral that is going to be constructed in Los Angeles. The Diocese of Los Angeles commissioned the famous Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo to design the building. Their hope is that the cathedral will be completed by the beginning of the millennium. It’s to be a peculiar witness to the glory of God. There were models of the cathedral at the groundbreaking service and on the basis of the models a Los Angeles Times ...

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